View the companion video at the Bible and Business YouTube channel. Taken from Chapter 2 of A Christian Theology of Business Ownership.
[00:00:05.190] – Bill English
And welcome. I’m Bill English, the publisher here at Bible and Business. And I want to welcome you back to another episode at the Bible and Business YouTube channel. Today we are in part two of an eight part series titled Becoming Free From the Bondage of Sin. This series is coming from chapter two in my book, a Christian Theology of Business Ownership.
[00:00:29.190] – Bill English
And today we’re going to look at the topic bondage is more than addictions. But before we get started, I’d like to invite you to head over to Bibleandbusiness.com and check it out. You can download the slides for this video series in PDF format. You can read some articles, listen to some podcasts, participate in our surveys, and even register for an online CEO ownership group. It’s live, it doesn’t cost anything, and I run these groups on a Saturday mornings.
[00:00:59.560] – Bill English
So you can click on the Events link and learn all about those groups there. I hope to see you at one of our groups soon. So what is bondage to sin? Bondage to sin means simply this that sin owns you. It hinders you from living in righteousness before God, and it is the notion that sin is your master.
[00:01:23.290] – Bill English
So what I’d like to do here at this point is differentiate between bondage to sin versus addiction versus compulsions. I want us to see that bondage to sin is a wider concept than necessarily just being addicted to something, even though that could be sin, or having a compulsion, which it could be sin, but either of those may actually may not be sin. Let me differentiate here. Compulsion is an unwanted but repetitive actions, like constantly washing your hands or constantly having to check that the stove is turned off, or constantly having to go back and check to make sure that the front door is locked after you’ve left for the day or you’re leaving for an evening or something like that. Addiction really refers to substance abuse.
[00:02:09.450] – Bill English
I’m addicted to alcohol or cocaine or some other substance, or maybe I’m addicted to sex or pornography, something like that. But at its root, bondage to sin is grounded in rebellion against God. And as compared to the sin of divination and rebellion, I should say, as compared to the sin of divination in one Samuel 1523. So it is the belief that your way is better than God’s way. And you can see that that belief doesn’t necessarily translate into an addiction or compulsion, but it does always translate into being bondage to sin.
[00:02:48.640] – Bill English
Sin always contains some kind of element of pride. It always has pride in it somewhere. And there’s a lot of people who know how to sin and they enjoy their sin and they enjoy being rebellious, but they do it with manners. They’re kind of nice about it, you know? But even though they sin with manners, it’s still sin and it’s still rebellion against God.
[00:03:11.660] – Bill English
So addiction is commonly thought of in terms of substance abuse or an abuse to sex, for an example. Whereas compulsions are thought of as unwanted, repetitive actions or thoughts. And like I said earlier, addictions and compulsions are not necessarily sin. They don’t have to be sin. Many times they are, but they don’t have to be.
[00:03:36.820] – Bill English
Whereas bondage to sin is that persistent belief that my way is better than God’s way. It is a persistent sin that is not necessarily an addiction or compulsion. It can be attitudinal as well as actional, and it can be sins of omission things that we don’t do that we should be doing, as well as sins of commission things that we are doing that we need to stop doing. Such sin may be both wanted and under my control. So let’s take a look now at an example, a number of different examples, actually, over the next three slides.
[00:04:14.190] – Bill English
Examples of the bondage of sin which are not necessarily addictions and they’re not necessarily compulsions.
[00:04:23.660] – Bill English
Constantly working to the point of exhaustion. We call it workaholism, right? You can work really, really hard a lot of times and work yourself into an exhaustive state and really enjoy it and become actually addicted to working all the time. You can become in bondage to that sin. People who use the Lord’s name in vain or use coarse language to express strong emotions.
[00:04:50.740] – Bill English
Paul talks about an ephesians how we’re not supposed to use coarse language and we’re not supposed to use the Lord’s name in vain. The Ten Commandments. Tell us.
[00:05:00.540] – Bill English
And so doing that can be an example of bondage to sin, enjoying the sport to the point of neglecting time with your loved ones. Now, the reason I use the picture here in this slide was for the sports analogy. There’s a lot of Christians who really get into sports and they to get into sports to the point where they really don’t spend a lot of time with God. The sports crowds out time with God, it crowds out time with family, it crowds out time with church because they are really in bondage to the sin. And this is especially true with children’s athletics.
[00:05:38.550] – Bill English
I know a number of Christians where once that baseball season rolls around, or once that football season or the hockey up here in Minnesota, once that hockey season rolls around, you can say goodbye to them. They’re not going to be at church, you’re not going to be able to invite them over for dinner. They are completely and utterly into that sport. And there comes a point at which that becomes sin and it’s different for different people where that point is. But there is a point at which that becomes sin and your allegiance to God is supplanted with your allegiance to that sport.
[00:06:13.990] – Bill English
There’s a lot of people who enjoy eating to the point where they are overweight or obese, the inability to say no to certain foods. When you commit the sin of gluttony over and over, you can become in bondage to that sin. Having to wear the latest fashions or holding onto material things when you clearly do not need them and you know that others do. There are Christians galore here in America who have huge closets full of clothes that they rarely wear and they could give those clothes away and no one, they would certainly wouldn’t miss them and others could really benefit from them. So those are some examples of bondage to sin, but let’s keep moving on.
[00:06:57.970] – Bill English
Other examples is a strong need to be right, even when being right doesn’t matter and it pushes people away. I’ve known people in technology, in politics, I’ve even known people in churches and in seminary who had such a need to be right that they would argue minutiae to the point where they pushed other people away and it really became a futile conversation with them. And in fact, what happens with these people is that they have such a strong need to be right that others know not to bring up certain topics with them because they don’t want to endure the debate that is sure to happen. It’s just not worth their while, it’s not worth their time, it’s not worth the effort. And so these people can actually destroy relationships if they don’t damage them, they can also destroy them by simply having a strong need to be right.
[00:07:51.570] – Bill English
I think this is one of the hallmarks of a mature Christian. They have given up the need to be right even when they know they’re right, they’ve given up their right to be right. Another example of a bondage to sin is measuring your self worth based on your material gain or your prestige, winning at something, education and so forth. There’s a lot of people that look at their self worth and they say, you know what? If I don’t have some money, if I don’t have prestige, if I don’t have these degrees, if I’m not winning at something, then you know what?
[00:08:26.280] – Bill English
I’m just a less of a person than this person over here or this other person over there. And in the comparison gain, they don’t measure up. And so their self worth is less than what God says it is. That’s an example of a bondage to sin. I’ve known Christians who embellish the truth with exaggerations to the point where they lie.
[00:08:47.650] – Bill English
And they can do it kind of through comedy. Sometimes they can be funny about it. But the truth is they embellish, and they embellish to the point of lying. And that is another example of being in bondage to sin. Trusting and believing in yourself more than you trust and believe in God.
[00:09:06.120] – Bill English
How many times does our culture tell us, just believe in yourself. Just trust in yourself? You’ll hear athletes say this all the time. We believe in ourselves. Even when no one else believed in us, we believed in ourselves.
[00:09:17.970] – Bill English
And I get what they’re saying, in the sense that they had to develop confidence in their abilities, and they had to work at their abilities to make them better. And so they developed themselves. And in a sense, they believed in themselves. But there’s another sense in which people really do believe in themselves, as if they are God, as if they are the savior of the situation. And when you do that, you bring yourself under a curse.
[00:09:42.250] – Bill English
Jeremiah tells us that those who trust in themselves are under a curse. We’re going to look at blessings and curses in a future episode in a different series. And what we’re going to learn is that trusting and believing in yourself is an example of someone who is going to live under a curse because.
[00:10:00.090] – Bill English
God sends them a curse when they do that. Stealing from God by not being as fully generous as possible with your money is an example of being in bondage to sin. And that’s why I chose the picture in this slide. You see money and it’s inside of handcuffs. This is an example of money that is in bondage.
[00:10:20.460] – Bill English
This is money that could be released to further God’s kingdom to help someone who is in need. But people left and right, especially in the wealthy ranks, they excessively save and they have an excessive amount of money in their investments, and they’re following American investment principles rather than following biblical principles on how much they should be saving, and then after that giving the rest away. You can actually this is really a sin of omission, not a sin of commission. Stealing from God by not being as fully generous as possible with your money, that’s another example of bondage to sin. A few more here rationalizing that you don’t have to give money to God because you’re not earning enough or because you work at a lot at a church, so your time is your tithe.
[00:11:08.050] – Bill English
I’ve known pastors who didn’t tithe, and they really believed that because they were pastoring, that was their tithe. They had already given their whole life to Christ, therefore all the money they made was theirs. That’s sin. That’s an example of bondage to sin. But rationalizing that you don’t have enough money to give to God is simply a lie.
[00:11:27.100] – Bill English
Even the poor widow who gave two copper coins, that widow’s, my story in the New Testament, even she gave two copper coins, and she gave all that she had out of her scarcity because of her love for God. So you can never rationalize that you don’t have enough to give money to God, even if it’s only a dollar. Everybody has a dollar they can give to God. And so that’s another example of being in bondage to sin. Another one this kind of goes along with having the need to be right, is being so adamant about your political ideas or your social ideas that your allegiance to a political party or social cause overshadows your allegiance to God.
[00:12:13.920] – Bill English
In other words, you are more committed to your political party or you are more committed to a social cause or some other kind of cause than you are to God himself. That is an example of a bondage to sin. Some people just they got to have the latest and greatest they overspend on indulgences such as sports tickets. You know, you go out and you look at some of these season tickets for some of these sporting teams, and you’re well into the tens of thousands of dollars. By the time you pay for the tickets and the parking all the time and the food and the concessions and everything, you can easily be above ten to $15,000 for season tickets.
[00:12:56.360] – Bill English
Is that really what a disciple of Jesus Christ should be doing with their money. It’s okay to enjoy sports. I’m not against sports. I like sports. I’m a Minnesota Vikings fan, and therefore I’m disappointed every year because my team is an underachieving team, right?
[00:13:10.770] – Bill English
But I’m a faithful fan of the Minnesota Vikings, and yet I don’t have to overindulge on them. I don’t have to spend a lot of money on them in order to enjoy them. Being lazy about spending time with God, reading His Word or praying is another example of being in bondage to the sin, of omission and omitting sin, where I just don’t spend much time with God. I just don’t read his word. I don’t pray.
[00:13:37.760] – Bill English
That’s all sin. And people can be in bondage to those sins or seeing a need and knowing that you can meet that need, but you simply choose not to. So you see a social need, you see a justice need, you see a need in the church, and you choose not to give. In the average Christian church today, 65% of the people who regularly attend or who are members never give $1 to support the ministries of that church. That’s sin.
[00:14:07.840] – Bill English
That’s bondage to sin. And that’s not being generous towards God. That’s seeing a need, knowing that the church has needs and needs to meet the needs of others. And you know that you can help with that, and you don’t to Him who knows to do good and does it not. To him.
[00:14:25.300] – Bill English
It is sin. 417, by the way. The reason I chose this picture is because of all the different political signs here. So I chose that for the comment about being so adamant about your political ideas that your allegiance to a political party or cause eclipses your allegiance to God. So remember, bondage to sin means that sin owns you.
[00:14:51.540] – Bill English
It hinders you from living in righteousness before God, and it is the notion that sin is your master. So what’s the lesson that we have learned today, the two lessons so far? The lesson today is you can be in bondage to sin, and you are in bondage to sin when sin owns you. And you can be in bondage even if you’re a Christian. Let me get that straight.
[00:15:13.780] – Bill English
Even if you’re a Christian, you can be in bondage to sin. The lessons we’ve learned also last week was that our personal dysfunction will become imprinted onto our businesses, and we’ll tend to see this as a business problem rather than solving that as a personal problem. So if you’re a Christian business owner and you’re living in bondage to sin, then God is going to have a hard time blessing you. There is a correlation, although it’s not absolute, and the Book of Job is a great example of where this one I’m about to say doesn’t apply. But there’s a correlation between how you live in righteousness and how much God can bless you.
[00:16:01.860] – Bill English
There is a correlation but it’s not absolute in the book of Job. It flies in the face of what I just taught. Listen, I’d like to thank you for joining me today. I’m Bill English. Here the publisher Bible and business.
[00:16:14.920] – Bill English
In our next episode, it’s going to be part three of this eight part series. And part three is going to deal with finding freedom and how it is available through Jesus Christ. Again, thank you for joining me. I hope you go out and make it a great day. Take care.